I'm hearing the same thing over and over: Statewide anti-bullying programs are a joke.

[Sancho]

2. I don't know about California...but it's difficult..

here in Florida there are statewide statutes and schools try to implement policies. It's hard to legally define bullying. Recognizing bullying takes lawyers, evidence, and practical punishment.

Without getting into a bunch of examples, some schools and districts have tried and the details are not worked out to make enforcement easily possible.


You see a lot of programming to prevent bullying, lots of attempts to get kids to report, and some mediation/problem solving skill building. Enforcing a policy with expulsion or suspension or whatever you think is possible is quite hard without repeated evidence against the bully. Also, if the bully carry on outside of school on the internet or in the neighborhood the school may not have a way to do anything. Local police won't respond often to a report on bullying unless it's clearly a crime that physical or stealing.